The Ceremony of Innocence
by Ayien
Summary: 30 drabbles on illicit relationships. In the darkness, Temari is not a seductress, Kankuro is not a puppet made by his his father's ghost, and Gaara is not the desert's child. Sandcest
1. Chapter 1

**Serpent **

Baki and his team were out in the Empty Quarter, the four sets of footprints stretching back into the haze on the horizon, red-gold sand dunes sculpted by the wind.

Gaara was ahead of them, small and frail and utterly alone, while the rest of them trudged after him with wary eyes.

Kankuro glanced up from where he was tinkering with Karasu- his new puppet- and stopped, the bottom dropping out of his stomach,

"W-what is Gaara doing?" His older sister stopped beside him, her face pale, hand tangling with his, sweaty fingers sliding against his palm. Baki caught up,

"Hey, brats, get mo-" and then was quiet like them, staring at this seven-year-old with the mind of a desert jackal. Gaara stood in the shadow of a dune, gazing down at a mating ball of rattlesnakes that writhed at his feet.

A whip of sand lashed out, serpent blood splattering against his lips, staining them red. Two halves of a snake flew towards them, the dying snake writhing still, fangs gaping as it sailed over their heads and landed.

Gaara knelt and thrust his hands into the ball, and none of them were brave enough to tell him 'no'. The serpents seemed to recognize this desert, their home, in human form, and coiled their way up his skinny, pale, childish arms to wrap around his neck like some sick version of jewelry.

Snake tongues flickered from poison mouths to kiss his face, his neck, his hands, and Baki realized that this was what Gaara had become, that the snakes of the desert who cared for nothing but themselves were what he looked to for love.

Gaara turned to them, hair like the blood of a serpent twisting in the wind, and Baki understood with terror in his heart that Gaara had become the desert's psychopathic god.

**Package **

The package arrived on every first day of the month, and it seemed to Temari that those packages were all that her youngest brother looked forward to anymore.

Gaara materialized in a swirl of sand in their living room, the plainly wrapped box clutched in his hands. He glanced over Temari and Kankuro, the two of them frozen on the couch with a pint of chocolate-chip cookie dough ice cream between them, and turned his back on them, silent, as he had been ever since his defeat in the Chuunin Exams. Kankuro spoke first, his spoon dribbling melted ice cream onto his hand.

"Hey, Gaara, what's in the box?" The terrible, tired gaze passed over them both, measuring, and Gaara slit the wrapping with his fingernail and opened the expensive wooden container with reverent hands. Temari pushed herself off the couch, dragging Kankuro with her- this was the first time Gaara had done anything for them in a month, the first time he had been in their presence for longer than a minute in three months, so if Kankuro fucked this up she was never speaking to him again- and looked into the box.

On a black velvet surface, a long hair shone. It was nearly a foot in length, burnished ruby-red in color, shining with an unholy gleam like fire beneath the earth's surface. She could feel Kankuro's hands itching to touch it, his love for shiny things rearing up again. She smacked his hand silently.

"What is it?" Gaara blinked, drawn out of some deep reverie, and finally, finally answered in a voice made hoarse by three months of silence,

"It's a hair from the Kyuubi's tails."

"What do you want that for?" Gaara looked back down at the hair with an expression mingling hatred and yearning, the look of an addict. "It- It makes things silent. Naruto sends me one every month. I braid each new one into the bracelet I'm making. When I have one from each of the Kyuubi's tails, the bracelet will finally work."

"What do you mean, it makes things silent?" Temari was surprised by how sharp her voice sounded, but Gaara sounded so worn that this needed attention. Pale eyes flicked up, pinned her in place.

"I have never known silence since I was born. Every minute of my life, I am not alone in my head. Every second, Shukaku whispers."

The box snapped shut, making her and Kankuro both jump. Gaara stared at both of them for a long, silent moment.

"Are you pleased that you know?"

Temari, numb with the knowledge of how long her brother had suffered, of the secret stories Shukaku had told him, could only shake her head.

**Lost**

Temari lay in the shadow of a rock outcropping on the borders of Suna, peering out over the dunes with her fan heavy on her back. The sun was setting, and the dunes were becoming purple as dusk came on ever faster. She took a drink from her water bottle and wiped her forehead with the back of her wrist.

"Damn envoys; if they got lost in the canyons, I'm _not_ going to rescue them," she muttered to herself, screwing the top back on the bottle and slipping it into her belt. The biting heat was gone, swallowed up in the oncoming night, and for these few hours, the desert was peaceful.

She shivered, feeling the hairs rise on the back of her neck, and fought down the instinctive urge to flee from what was behind her. Turning over, she met pale eyes and a mouth set in a flat, blank line.

"H- hey, Gaara." Her brother- _her brother_- stepped closer. It was all she could do not to scramble away, even though she knew that whatever she did would do nothing in the face of Gaara. Sand trickled up her legs with soft hisses, slipping through the holes in her mesh to rub against her skin.

"Temari." His voice was too deep, too quiet, too sad, to be what he was, to do what he did. She didn't move, her throat almost swollen shut with fear. The iron taste of fear filled her mouth. Gaara knelt, still moving with that _damnable slowness_, and studied her for a long minute.

For a moment, with the sun behind him, outlining his body and his hair with purple-bronze light, he was beautiful. Beautiful even in the face of the demon that had inhabited him, the demon that was gone now. He reached out and touched her face, fingers raspy with sand.

"Ga-" she stopped short as the fingers moved, curiously impersonal, down her neck, tracing the line of her artery, and came to a stop just above her breasts. She swallowed.

"A girl tried to kiss me, Temari." Hysterical laughter bubbled in her throat, confronted with this idiotically stupid thing, her brother who had never received a loving touch in his life suddenly being fawned over by all the girls in the village.

"The sand repelled her. She was lucky she wasn't permanently damaged." And oh god, those fingers were moving again, curving to cup her breast in one deceptively slender hand.

"She talked too much." His hand flexed. Electricity sparked through her body, and it was wrong, so wrong, but this was_ Gaara_, the avatar of the desert, wild and tragic and pitiless, and there was no one on the earth that could truly say 'no' to Gaara, least of all her, because she had failed him so many times.

"I realized that none of them want me for me. They don't understand what I am." He leaned closer, until she could see the fine red dusting of eyelashes against the darkness of his eyes.

"You do. Naruto and-" a pause, then, for this old wound, "Yashamaru told me love heals all wounds, even those of the heart. Will you heal mine?"

She breathed out a silent 'yes.' Gaara's expression didn't change, but the clever fingers left and he leaned forward and suddenly there were lips on hers, and she was kissing back, and it was terribly wrong, but when had Gaara- hell, even she, the best kunoichi of Suna- given a fuck about morals, because this kiss was so terribly good.

They separated at last, and she opened her eyes to see Gaara studying her again, his eyes no warmer than before. He licked his lips, pink tongue darting out to catch the last taste of her, and said,

"I will get the envoy. Go home." She stood on shaky legs, fan rattling on her back, and nearly didn't catch the murmur of his voice,

"Wait for me whenever darkness falls."

**Tell Me **

Kankuro hardly ever gets truly angry; sure, he gets pissy, especially when confronted by Gaara's total strangeness, how alien and remote he is from all human thoughts and ways. Anger is something saved for later, in the bedroom.

Because he's angry at Temari for letting this happen, and he's angry at Gaara for needing it- even though it (whatever 'it' is) is so much better a way to feel alive than killing random people with a flick of his fingers- but most of all he's angry at himself for wanting it, for never feeling as safe as he does in Temari's bed with the green covers and weird stains.

Gaara has never been human- never since the day Kankuro looked up from his breakfast and saw his little brother standing in the doorway with blood dripping from a new symbol on his forehead and realized that it was too late, too late, too late, too late to pull him from the shadows- but in bed Kankuro allows himself to think that Gaara was once something near human.

Because when Temari drapes herself over his back and kisses his throat while he slams himself into Gaara, nails raking over sand armor in another confirmation that he sleeps with a demon, he mutters against the darkness,

"Tell me tell me tell me-"

(_that my brother is human, that my sister isn't as fucked up and psychopathic in the head as I know she must be, that I'm not what the Kazekage said I am)_

And Gaara's back arches and a howl that carries the rumbling of sand in it tears from his throat in a sound not fit for human ears.

**Claim **

Gaara sits at his desk, ink spattering the tips of his fingers. Temari glances at them, swallows, remembering- _fingers twisting inside her, knife-like with their knowing and the pain/pleasure they bring-_ before she looks away, leaning against the wall. Kankuro is across the room, slouched in an armchair, staring at a schematic for a new puppet, but she knows that he is seeing none of it, his mind occupied with reliving the feel of sand whispering across skin like the breath of the dead. Kankuro is the one she can call her brother, the one whose mind she knows, whose pain she feels.

Unlike Gaara. The pen scratches across another sheet of paper, the sound loud in the silence of the office, before the sound ceases. She dares to sneak another glance. Gaara is gazing at her, his eyes inscrutable, blank, devoid of everything. The side of her mouth quivers in a nervous smile.

Gaara stands with a rasp of starched cloth, luminous in the darkness of the office, and crosses to her, pins her to the wall with his hands on either side of her head, venom-green eyes boring into her. She sees Kankuro tense over Gaara's shoulder, knows that he is remembering Gaara's appearance in his bedroom, the way Gaara coerced him into fucking him, skin against skin and breath mingling with breath.

"Kankuro." Gaara's breath- it smells of blood, still, even after all these years- shudders against her face. "Temari." His hand cups her cheek, and she realizes with a start that it is bare, free of sand, free of barriers, for the first time.

"Both of you," something old and feral gleams in his eyes as he almost snarls the next words, "are mine." A hot mouth, burning and dry like dust borne on the wind, latches onto her neck. Her knees turn to water, fingers clenching in his robes, but she retains just enough of her sanity to think,

'_We've always been yours, we're nothing without you, you wind, you devil, our God.'_

Her nails dig into his shoulders, leaving half-moons of red, Gaara's tongue scribbling archaic designs on her skin. Gloved hands rest on top of hers, and she opens her eyes to see Kankuro staring at her, before he leans forward, pressing Gaara's lean, lithe form into her. She turns her head blindly and they are kissing, tongues sliding, curling around each other, the kiss bitter with the knowledge that they are willing slaves to their brother's insanity, that his whim is their command.

They break apart, Kankuro's paint smeared, hood askew and brown hair falling down in haphazard tufts. Gaara is watching them both from between their bodies, the arch of a brow showing that he is pleased.

"Both of you, my room, at one." Temari lets her head fall back against the wall, assenting.

Because they are all he has, and the guilt that they feel for his suffering is enough.

Because their tiny, fucked-up family is all that there is.


	2. Chapter 2

**Whisper  
**

Gaara sits on the edge of the rooftop, knees pulled to his chest and arms wrapped around his skinny legs, an unexpectedly vulnerable and child-like position. Baki doesn't know what to think or say or do, watching the man who had once been his student, now leader of their village, suffer without a word.

And so Gaara has survived, these long thirteen years, suffering and broken, the alien mind in a world that cannot, will not, understand him.

Gaara fell into the world from his mother's bleeding belly, born a monster and a tool, and she loosed him from the dream of life, her curse and her love embodied in blood-soaked sand.

He sees Shukaku there, behind those green, green eyes that look into a place where human eyes can't see, held at bay by a rusted gate of broken seals.

A battle-god, whose kingdom is the field where a thousand corpses lie.

Two shadows appear at Gaara's side, falling into place beside him. Kankuro's paint is off, his hood down, lips curved in an easy smile as he slings an arm around Gaara's thin shoulders, presses a kiss to a pale temple. Temari slides in behind Gaara and pulls him back into her embrace, poking him in the side with her hand. The conversation is easy to hear.

"-do realize I'm going to kill that idiot diplomat from Rain, don't you?"

"Temari, I totally agree with you- if he's hitting on you, he must be blind- but we don't want diplomatic incidents, do we?"

Kankuro shrinks away, laughing, as Temari lunges, grabs his head, and punches him, before Kankuro hooks an arm around her neck and pulls her into a lingering kiss. Baki understands, then, what his charges have done.

They are everything to each other, now: siblings, teammates, lovers. '_ Sinners_.' Gaara twists and says something. His siblings freeze, hasten to reassure him with tentative touches- contact he accepts, a thirsting man devouring water- as if…

As if they do not fear him. '_ Reckless fools_.' Temari and Kankuro's expressions are forced, their happiness fake. Baki understands, once more. They fear him the most, more than anyone else in this world, because they know just what he is.

They know his rage, his fear, his destructive power that could destroy the village, but more than anything, they know his isolation and his alienation.

Gaara is truly a monster. No one can hope to understand him, and he can never understand them. But he tries.

He is forever swimming towards a horizon that he can never reach, convinced that somewhere beyond the sea there is a promised land, the one that the rest of the world is living in.

And as long as he keeps swimming, keeps trying, the village is safe.

And so it is Kankuro and Temari, because of their fear and love of him, that must stand between him and the world, between him and Shukaku's whispers from the gate of broken seals, between him and the urge to stop swimming, to sink, and destroy the promised land forever.

**Domestic**

Gaara has never made his own food; the sand provided him with everything he needed. But now Shukaku is gone, and so he sits hidden on the old chair in the corner, learning, and watches Temari and Kankuro stand side-by-side at the kitchen counter, poor replacements for his mother's curse.

Temari's sleeves are rolled up to her elbows. He can see the red lines from Kankuro's raking fingers spiraling around her arms, and the bruised skin on the inside of her wrist from his mouth.

Kankuro looks relaxed, the collar of his shirt slipping off his shoulder as he talks about something inane, hands occupied with chopping carrots. He isn't sure what relaxed means, but perhaps it is the way Kankuro smiles, favoring his exposed shoulder, scattered with claw marks and the imprint of his teeth.

Temari reaches up, removes a pot from the cabinet, and scoops the carrots into it, placing it on the burner.

He gets up- they jerk, spin around, surprised at his presence- and crosses the kitchen, peering into the pot.

"What is it?"

"S-" Kankuro clears his throat, tries again, "Soup." He looks up at his brother, then at Temari. They are staring at him, green eyes- darker than his own- devoid of hope. Hope is foreign. He wonders how he can obtain some of his own, but then… in the kingdom of the mad that he has dragged them into by virtue of his existence, hope is dead.

"Teach me." Even in the kingdom of the mad where he is emperor and king and god, he can learn, if they will teach him.

His siblings, lovers, smile tentatively, and move behind him, Kankuro's hand wrapped around his on the knife, Temari's hips pressing into his back.

Gaara chops carrots for the first time, and ponders the existence of hope.

**Hair **

Temari watched the scissors move across Gaara's hair, light flashing off the blades as they grated against the sand that covered every solitary millimeter of Gaara's body. A drop of sweat rolled down Kankuro's nose and hung, quivering, as he wiped the scissors on his pants and returned to his work, lower lip trembling.

Shaking like Gaara's hands were shaking, his head bowed and hidden from the world as sand lashed out, tightly reined, tightly controlled. Her hand rested on the top of her fan, feeling the deadly potential within the paper and steel, nerves jangling and shrieking with danger, all because of the sand twining around their feet.

She supposed that she could be thankful that Gaara only needed his hair trimmed once every three months. She could also be thankful that Gaara allowed her and Kankuro to do it, that he controlled the remnants of their mother's love strongly enough for them to touch him.

Red hair fell like drops of blood to the floor, curling on the carpet as sand sloughed off the strands with little hissing sounds. Kankuro swallowed audibly, leaned back against the wall, sighing.

"Done. Want a mirror or something so you can check it out?" The joke fell flat, Gaara's harsh breathing loud in the silence, his nails leaving dents in the wood. Her youngest brother straightened, stood, and reached out to touch Kankuro's chest.

Kankuro stared down into acid-green eyes with something too tired to be affection. "Now what?" Gaara's hand moved, fisted in the worn cloth of his shirt as he pulled him down, mouth sealing itself over Kankuro's.

Temari gulped, shifted. It was wrong to watch them, wrong to do what they were doing, but it was that wrongness that made it so affecting, that made warmth prickle on her skin and blood pound in her ears.

She knew the real world was out there somewhere, that they would condemn them all and hate them and curse them for sickness and incest, but the fragile trust that Gaara showed them everyday, even in something as simple as a haircut…

That made it worth it.

**Groom **

Kankuro jerks awake with a harsh sob of 'Father', the sound muffled and hushed in the closeness of his room. Karasu gleams in the darkness, his three eyes blacker than the pinion of a raven. The birds of death that he still sees, feeding on his father's corpse every time he closes his eyes, sees in fucking 3D and with full sound. He should hate the man for grooming Temari to be the psychopathic killer that she is, for grooming him to be this child rattling around in the body of a man, for doing- hell, _everything_ to Gaara. For Gaara's entire existence.

The sticky clogging of tears in the back of his throat is hard to stifle, to transmute into coldness, and suddenly he doesn't have to, for Gaara is behind him, shirtless and plastered to his back, all fever-hot and teeth scraping across his skin.

The door creaks open and Temari enters, hair down and falling softly across her shoulders, wrapped in a ratty bathrobe, callused feet bare on the carpet as she crosses the room. Shrugs shoulders, robe falling to the floor and leaving her naked and all curves in the darkness.

"Starting without me?" Her voice is amused as she slides beneath the sheets and presses herself to Kankuro's chest, hand twining with Gaara's on his hip.

"Nightmare," Gaara breaks off trying to suck his spine out through his shoulder to explain before crawling over him and sliding down his body to lick wetly at the seam of his boxers, and _holy Jesus fuck_ Gaara is now trying to suck his spine out through his dick and he can't stop himself from moaning.

Doesn't have to, again, for Temari is at his mouth and swallowing the sounds with hunger, hands raking across his chest and leaving ten long lines of fire in their wake as nails scrape against his skin.

He hisses, hands rough on her hips, Temari's hair brushing over his face as her tongue twines around his, slick and clever, and Gaara's mouth is a fucking furnace, his brother's body burning, burning, burning from the inside out with hate and lust and savagery he can't even begin to understand.

He arches up, explodes into white and gray and nothing. Falls back to earth slowly, blinks tired eyes as he feels Gaara and Temari on either side of him, warm and alive, and they can't talk about their father or whatever they feel, but he doesn't expect them to, never has, never will.

Three hands join, and his last thought is,

'_All night long I've held your hand_. '

**Snow**

Sometimes in the winter, when snow falls in a light dusting from the gray, blank sky to the gray, blank desert, Temari likes to lie in the dunes with her arms outstretched and pretend that she is weightless and alone.

Snow lands on her eyelashes with the lightest touch, like grains of sand weighted with blood, and melts and runs down her face to pool in the curve of her neck. Gaara permits her these wanderings, and she knows that he watches wherever she is, the desert responding to his every thought.

She catches snowflakes on her tongue and tastes nothing, the snow cool on the bruises and the scrapes and the physical pain of being who she is, of falling so far and so long into the clinging terror of her brothers' love.

She swallows, lets a hand crawl out to entwine fingers, closing her eyes and anchoring herself to earth with toes digging into the sand- she wonders if Gaara can feel that, if he wishes he could touch her and doesn't- and giggles at the feeling of the dead.

Temari rolls onto her side and gazes into the pale blue eyes of her father's corpse. A thick black tongue falls from between rotted bone and he speaks with a voice that carries the buzzing of flies, fire burning silver on his bones.

_This corpse will not stop burning!_

"Hello, daughter." She supposes there should be fear.Words chase themselves around the inside of her head, weaving in and out of memories of clammy hands of old men spasming on her hips as they reach the little death and she gives them the big one, all at once. Words can't speak for her anymore.

_And the dead-_

_And the dead-_

_And the dead shall be raised up, incorruptible._

"Hello, father." The snow covers his bones- lovely, lovely bones, white and gleaming and bigger and brighter than snow- but the blue eyes continue to meet her gaze. Something stabs at the inside of her head- his eyes had been brown, not decaying blue from the inside out- and she bites off a cry.

Two pairs of hands grab her by the shoulders and shake her, frantic and afraid, and she can hear Kankuro's voice from a far-away horizon shouting her name and shrieking that there is nothing there so would she please shut up Temari I love you what is wrong?

Sand ripples around her. She sees Gaara's feet near her side as he pulls her into his lap and turns her face away from the blue eyes and the silver flames of the corpse that will not stop burning or talking.

"Suna creates a desert," her father groans out as he sinks farther and farther into his son's embrace, "and calls it peace."

The silver flames burn out, and the fly, the last nightmare, hatches.


	3. Chapter 3

**Thumb**

Gaara is cold beneath the sheets, the white linen molding itself to his hauntingly thin body, bones outlined by shadow. Kankuro stands behind Temari, fingers interlaced with her and hands resting on her hips. The room is dark, silent, and still, dusty with the remnants of six years.

There is a faded photograph on the wall, two siblings laughing as they share a wedding cake. Kankuro blinks away sudden tears as he looks away, chest aching at the sight of his mother's smiling face and his uncle's happiness. And now Gaara is free of the demon, free to sleep and dream, and his mother, who had loved her son so much, who had despised what he was forced to become, is not here to see it.

Temari squeezes his hands, and he returns to his attention to where his brother lies in the bed that Yashamaru had slept in, that Gaara had crawled into some nights and pressed himself to his uncle's chest. '_Fucker_.'

Gaara's body jerks, eyelids fluttering as he chews on his thumb, a childish gesture, a regression to what he had never been. Blood streaks his pale lips. Kankuro leans forward and presses his face into Temari's hair, sighing.

He hasn't visited Yashamaru's grave in years, not since he was eight and his nurse made him go pay respects with Temari on the anniversary of their uncle's death. No one asked Gaara to go. No one even knew where the failed experiment was most of the time, back then. He wonders if he should bring flowers next time he visits. Stinging nettles would be appropriate.

"He was dead," Temari says. Her voice quivers, shakes, fingers tight on his hands. "He _died_, Kankuro. And they tortured him." The marks are still fresh, red and seeping through the bandages. Kankuro closes his eyes and holds her closer, afraid. If Gaara could be killed, could be tortured, could die, then there's no hope for the rest of them, for the normal ones who don't have demons and shields born from their mother's soul to protect them.

Well, maybe except Temari, because she's too stubborn and bitchy to die. Ever. Unlike him.

Gaara whimpers. The sound is choked, quiet, and somehow horrible. Kankuro starts, reaches for the bed, but Temari slaps his hand away. "He said not to touch him. It could be dangerous." Kankuro glares at the back of her head.

Sand litters the floor around their feet, the remnants of Gaara's armor. His brother had been too… weak to hold it on. Somehow that was the worst. Even worse than seeing his brother's still form, holding his wrist in his hand and feeling how still the blood in his veins was, even worse than the deep gash that slashed through the black seal on his shoulder and exposed the white of his bone.

He doesn't know why Gaara wanted to sleep in here, why he demanded that Kankuro carry him here. This room gives him the shivers, not least because of Gaara's old bear that sits in the corner, beaming sightlessly at them. It definitely doesn't help that the bear has blood spattered across its velvet fur.

The bear brings back memories of blood in the moonlight, of Gaara's terrified screams in the middle of the night, of blood-saturated sand littering the courtyard of their old house, of seeing his nurse throw off her clothes to reveal kunai, of finding out that she was an assassin hired to kill Gaara, of seeing her bleed sand grains from every orifice before ripping apart in uncoiled bits of skin and flesh.

He bites his tongue in an attempt to stave off the memory.

"How long has it been, Temari?" His sister leans back into him, warm and solid in his arms. She lets her head fall back on his shoulder, allows him to kiss her temple, and breathes,

"Ten years, three months, and twenty-five days since the last time." It is hard for Kankuro to suppress a shudder. The hundreds of names from the massacre are still there, carved on a stone in the middle of town, and Gaara has never had them removed, never even looked at them, never acknowledged the horror he committed when he was six years old, and slept for the first time in his life, exhausted by his uncle's death.

And for those hundred names, he and Temari stand vigil over their brother's tortured, bloody form, ready, if they must, to die for him, to die to kill him.

**Emotion**

Gaara leaned back in his chair, flexing cramped fingers as he stared at the incomprehensible document in front of him. '_Incompetent politicians. No one will trust them if they don't speak their minds._' He snorted. '_No one trusts them, already_.'

"Problem?" The door swung open, kept from banging by a cushion of sand, and Kankuro bounded in, blood smeared down one side of his face.

"Yes. The mission?"

"Went great. The target's currently rotting at the bottom of the river, the fake suicide note left on his bureau- all by the books. What's the problem?"

"The council. They refuse to compromise, or to speak plainly. There is unrest in the streets, directed at them." Kankuro wiped the smear off with his sleeve and fell into a chair, stilled from putting his feet up by a judicious use of glaring.

"Well, you know what the other countries say about us. We're the country of the wolves, ready to fight at a moment's notice, and if the council's stirring up trouble… well."

"I know. I feel angry. I think that I would like to execute them." Kankuro flinched- it was small, but noticeable- and covered it up quickly, leaning forward.

"That'd just make things worse."

"For them. Not for me." His brother rolled his eyes. Gaara had seen him do that many times, and was beginning to understand that it meant he had said or done something that showed his alienation.

"Would it help if I talked to them?" Kankuro wiggled his fingers, grinning. "I am a puppeteer, after all!" Gaara tilted his head, remembering where those fingers had been, almost a week ago. He thought that it might be nice to repeat that experience.

"If you make it seem like you were the one who came up with the idea, then yes." He glanced back down at the paper, then back up at Kankuro, before leaning across the desk and kissing him. "Thank you," he said as he drew away. Kankuro stared at him, surprised, and smiled.

"No problem. What are brothers for?" His brother got up, waved, and left the room. Gaara watched him leave, satisfied.

Perhaps he was beginning to understand human emotion after all.

**Why**

Kankuro was tired of being the dependable one. He was tired of taking care of Gaara- a full time job- and having to deal with Temari's psychotic breaks, he was tired of dreaming of Gaara's skin under his tongue and the feeling of Temari against him.

Mostly, he was tired of needing them the way he did.

All of which explained, in a very roundabout and convoluted fashion, why he was standing in front of Umeko's house with a wilted bunch of flowers clutched in one fist and tickets to the midsummer festival in the other.

They'd met through work; as commander of ANBU Squad Seven, he was required to meet with the other commanders every month. Yesterday's meeting had been the worst, and he had shifted on the hard chair constantly, back- clawed to shreds by Temari's overly happy fingernails- protesting every time it touched cloth, and muscles burning with every movement, remembering the way Gaara had moved above him, all pale and otherworldly in the darkness.

Umeko saw his discomfort and invited him to the festival, to 'work off stress' as she put it. And Kankuro accepted, because he was sick of the way he craved his siblings- the people who shared a hundred percent of his DNA, the people who he had grown up with and played with and hell, whose diapers he had seen changed, in Gaara's case- and sick of the guilt and the fear and the torment.

So. Here he was, on a normal date. He knocked on the apartment door, surprised when it swung open immediately and Umeko stepped out, pale blonde hair- almost silver- tied back and pale blue eyes fixed on him, dress slit up the side to show milk-white skin. Her eyes, eyes that saw the future, courtesy of her family's bloodline, looked him over, before she nodded briskly, and accepted the flowers, putting them in a vase.

"Thank you, Kankuro. They're beautiful." The compliments came easily to his lips, a mouth used to wheedling politicians and performing diplomacy for a brother who had only the barest understanding of humanity, as he said,

"Not half as beautiful as you." She glanced at him sharply, then laughed. "Flatterer. Shall we go?"

It was a fun date, full of sake and carnival games and freshly made dango, and Kankuro ignored Temari and Gaara's accusing stares from where they stood on the platform overseeing the festival.

Continued to ignore them as Umeko pressed herself into his arms and breathed sake-bitter breath in his face, her breasts pushing against his chest and long white arms coiled around his neck as she rubbed herself against him like a cat in heat, thigh sliding between his legs and pressing at his groin.

He could feel Temari's poisonous gaze boring into his back as he dipped his head and kissed her, pretending- if only for this night- that he was normal, not the brother of the psychotic Kazekage and a sister who could take out his entire squad if she had a mind to, not the son of a Kazekage who sacrificed his wife for his own ambition, not the nephew of a healer who lived his life in hopes of killing.

They tumbled into the bed in her apartment, clothes shed behind them like a desert snake sheds skin, and he lost himself for a while in her taste and smooth skin. She tasted like plums instead of Gaara's blood, her skin soft and smooth and totally unlike Temari's calluses and scars.

And if in the night, she jerked awake whispering,

"I am the lover whom you will betray,"

Well, it was a simple matter to modify her memories, so that if only for a little while, he had her.

* * *

And now it was over, and she was dead, because he had made the choice to save Temari over her, his fiancée. For he had proposed two nights ago- if only to escape the nights when Temari and Gaara crawled into his bed and tried to bring him home- and she had accepted. 

She was lying in his arms, pale blue eyes clouding over quickly, but not half as quickly as her blood coated his hands. She coughed, wet and sick.

"You betrayed me, you bastard. They warned me you loved your siblings too much…" she took a crackling breath. He could feel Temari's hand on his shoulder, and knew without looking of the triumphant grin on his sister's face.

"They told me you would betray me." Her eyes shut. Temari's hand squeezed his shoulder. He laid Umeko on the ground, stood, and turned into his sister's arms, sagging.

No matter how long or how far he ran, Gaara and Temari would be there, and they would always-

_Always._

-bring him home.

**Reading**

Temari stood at Gaara's shoulder as he read the bloodstained note in front of him, completely still, completely silent, with only the soft hissing of sand at his feet testifying to his fury. Kankuro was unable to be around Gaara when he got like this, too afraid of him and his rage, but Gaara allowed her to be present, for they shared, in some odd way, their insanity.

"What's the problem?" Gaara crushed the note in his hand, leaning back in his seat as she moved to place her hands on his shoulder, feeling the thin bones push against her fingers.

"A Sound patrol attacked and killed a class of genin out on a training exercise." Her fingers tightened on his shoulders, digging into the sand armor and grating against it. "How many?" Gaara sighed, long and low.

"Twenty confirmed dead, out of twenty-two. Both chuunin and the jounin are confirmed. The messenger bird that brought the note died once it arrived, so we have no location." She moved out of his way as he pushed the chair back and stood, sand flowing together on his back to form the gourd.

The silence stretched between them.

"What do you want to do?" He blinked, broken from his reverie, and turned to her.

"Kill them. Would you like to come?" He grinned, then, wolfish and ugly, a slash of teeth across his face. She crossed the room and slipped her hand into his, her other hand going to touch her fan as she squeezed.

"Of course." And they disappeared in a swirl of sand.

* * *

The area stank of rotting meat, and the buzzards and flies swarming overhead didn't help the impression. Bodies lay littered over the dunes, torn to pieces by blasts of sound. Temari knelt, turned over one, and bit the inside of her cheek, feeling blood spring into her mouth.

The boy had been so small, and even though she had absolutely no maternal instinct, nor any desire for one, to see his round face torn to shreds and bone peeking through skin was still…

Disgusting. She turned away and looked at Gaara, who was standing at the top of a sand dune, arms folded, eyes closed as sand rippled at his feet. Turning back, she closed the boy's eyes with the palm of her hand and straightened his clothes.

"Temari."

"Yeah?" Gaara opened his eyes, came to her, and knelt beside her. "I'm going to send them back to Suna. They'll arrive when we do." Sand rippled up around them, covering the bodies and pulling them down into the desert. The ripples joined, and then began racing back to Suna underneath the surface of the sand. Gaara watched them leave, bent his head, and swallowed.

"They were my genin, Temari. They were mine."

"I know."

"I already sent the other two back to Suna. I doubt they enjoyed the sand taking them there, but it was necessary." His hands clenched. "The patrol is about a mile away." She gave him a hand up, brushed sand off his robe, and leaned in to kiss him, biting his lower lip before drawing back, lips stained with his blood as she grinned.

"Let's get them." Gaara returned the smile, the light in his eyes unholy, unclean, and insane, and Temari loved him for it. She whispered, sand twining restlessly around her legs as they stood together, hunters,

"Let us show them fear in a handful of dust."

**Taste**

Baki knocked on the door to Gaara's office, and hearing the Kazekage's irritated 'Enter', cracked the door open and slid inside, flicking the stack of papers across the desk and into Gaara's waiting hands. The dates in his mouth tasted bitter with a premonition of terror.

Gaara blinked slowly as he perused the papers, with only the slowing of his breathing testifying to his irritation. Baki tensed, fear humming in his bones as he waited for Gaara's reaction. His Kazekage sighed at last, leaning back in the chair his father had died in.

"Has the feudal lord given a reason for this change in policy?" The door opened behind him, Kankuro and Temari elbowing each other as they entered the room, straightening as they saw him. Gaara's tired, exhaustion-pinched face smoothed marginally as he saw them, the stifling anger in the air clearing a bit. The dates suddenly became sweet again, the flavor fresh on his tongue as he swallowed them.

"None, sir, except that a policy of appeasement is best to use in dealing with Sound. Lord Akagi imports almost all of his rice from them, so Sound is obviously using economic leverage."

"Appeasement?" Temari's voice was low and dangerous, her eyes green fire. "They _slaughtered_ our genin- twelve years old, most of them- and Akagi wants _appeasement_?" Kankuro rested a black-gloved hand on her shoulder, standing well away from Temari's hands, curled into trembling fists.

"I know, Temari. Akagi's a fucking spineless coward, no doubt about it, but there isn't much we can do." Temari turned to him, crossed her arms and arched a brow. "There isn't much we can do, legally. Illegally is an entirely different matter."

"Now you're advocating treason, Temari?" Baki spoke up. "Your father would be rolling in his grave." She snorted.

"Then it's a good thing we left him in the desert for the jackals." Baki bit the inside of his lip- the sister of the Kazekage, she may have been, but it was not for her to speak ill of the dead- and controlled his ill will. To insult Temari or Kankuro, in this new Suna of incest, was to die.

"Temari." Gaara's hands were steepled in front of him, pale eyes- like glow fire above the salt marshes- peering at them from a face too old for his body. "Calm yourself. Kankuro." His brother straightened immediately, trickster changing to a soldier in the space of a moment. "How quickly can ANBU Squad Seven be mobilized for a covert mission into Sound territory?" Temari turned to face Gaara, a terrible smile pulling at her mouth. Kankuro grinned. "As soon as you need us to be." Gaara did not smile, but the light in his eyes made up for it.

"Good. The mission is S-rank. Find the outlying villages with the rice fields. Raze them. Burn the villages to the ground. Salt the earth." Temari vibrated at his side, a hunting dog waiting for his command. Gaara indulged her.

"Go with them, Temari. Kill all those you wish." Baki closed his eyes, seeing the death toll already, now that Temari had permission. It would probably be in the hundreds, but- he had to admit with grudging admiration- it was a clever strategy. It showed Akagi their power, their displeasure with him, and provided a clear demonstration to all the neighboring nations of what vengeance Suna could exact on those who killed their own.

Temari made a noise of glee and leaned across the desk, pulling Gaara's face to her and kissing him savagely. Baki could hear the clashing of teeth from where he stood, averting his face as Kankuro joined them, kissed Gaara- a quieter kiss, this one, but no less passionate; he could hear the raking of nails and fingers across sandy armor- and whispered a quiet thanks.

Gaara accepted the contact stoically, and finally leaned back in his chair. Baki, turning back, saw them as nothing more than a pack of wolves, ready and waiting for the hunt, killing machines on the warpath.

"Go." Temari and Kankuro bounded from the room in a whirl of teeth and horrid plans. Gaara studied him for a long moment, and it was all he could do not to flinch.

"You think I was too harsh." Baki closed his eyes for a long moment.

"It is not my place to judge." One side of Gaara's mouth lifted in a spare grin. The fear of sixteen years of demonic terror came flooding back, acrid and bitter, at his expression: utterly calm, utterly ruthless. '_He impersonates a person better than a zombie should,_' Baki thought.

"Correct."

Baki tasted blood and the bitterness of death and burnt rice in his mouth.


	4. Chapter 4

**Sedation **

Gaara's lip curled as he gazed down at the ruin of his sister's body, the inflamed flesh that covered her body red and hot to the touch. Temari's chest rose and fell, the intravenous drips of morphine and some sort of sedative plinking softly with each drop. The empty space in his head, where Shukaku had once slept, roared, blackness welling up behind his eyes as he steadied himself on the railing of the bed.

It was disgusting, perverted, to see his sister in such a way, to know that she had fallen to the poison of a Grass-nin. Her, the second-strongest shinobi in Suna, head of the Interrogation Department, his right hand and commander of his shock troops. Even worse that Kankuro was not here, but in Konoha, dealing with diplomatic issues.

Right hand gone, infected by enemy poison; left hand gone, busy with something else.

Kankuro could have calmed her, could have done something as medics rushed her into intensive care, their faces etched with terror as Temari thrashed, howled with rage, furious at being brought down, at losing to anyone. Gaara touched her hand, careful of pressure, and stared down at her closed eyes.

She had apologized to him, just before slipping down into the heady embrace of opiates. Apologized for failing him. His eyelid twitched, involuntarily, the only loss of control he would permit himself, the only outward sign of the rage that kept the medics from entering the room.

She had nothing to apologize for, and just for that, for making his elder sister, his lover and friend and sibling and one of the three people on this earth he truly cared for, apologize-

The Grass-nins' deaths would be neither quick nor painless.

* * *

The sand rippled around him, warm and heavy, as he sat on the top of the mesa, bright stars moving overhead. Before Akatsuki, before the loss of Shukaku, it would have been easy to find them, to bend the entire desert to his will- 

And now it was no longer easy. His teeth ground together, the taste of Shukaku's ashes cold and gritty in his mouth. Very well. Manual tracking, while time-consuming and often imperfect, appeared to be the only recourse he had at his disposal. The ANBU had offered to track the enemy down for him, but that would have taken all the fun from the hunt.

He descended the mesa, feet sinking into the cooling sand, and paused for a moment. The desert was white and luminous in the moonlight, with only the shadowed shapes of fennec foxes and snakes interrupting the expanse of dunes. Most people found the desert ugly, sterile. It was only the shinobi, who bent the desert to their will, who lived and breathed and died in the desert, who found it beautiful.

Dappled spots ahead in the sand, the shadows changing as they passed over the blurred remnants of footsteps. He knelt beside them, plunged hands into the sand and felt for more changes in texture and composition ahead, felt with senses that were now dulled, blurred, all the sharpness that the demon had granted lost.

Nothing. The Grass-nin had become smarter, then: they had begun dragging a brush behind them, to wipe away their steps. He smiled. That was a new measure, one that the other shinobi had only begun using after he took power; it was somewhat flattering. Not that flattery would save them.

He stood again, wiped his hands off on his robes, and climbed to the top of the dune, looking out across the expanse again. The Grass-nin had most likely stopped when the sun went down, the chill of a desert night so different from the heat of their jungle home, and that would be their last mistake. Now, all he had to look for was animal tracks. The foxes would have congregated around their camp, hoping for a handout. And there, more shadows, large and small, jackals and foxes moving.

He would leave the bodies for them, a thanks for their assistance.

The camp was small, with only five jounin visible. The female chuunin they had come to collect was no doubt in one of the tents. '_Idiot girl._ _Your information was valuable. We would have treated you well, and released you in good time. Unfortunately, your life is now forfeit_.' He closed his left eye, manipulated the Sand Eye, and peered inside the tents, finding the girl.

The sand around her cot moved, hissed as it slithered up her limbs. Her eyes flashed open, scream muffled by a tendril of sand. Her struggles were easily suppressed as the sand dragged her down into the desert, forming a small bubble within the earth for her to rest in. Gaara's hands moved through a few more seals, locking her underneath the sand.

'_You can starve, if the heat does not kill you first._' The eye dissipated, and he walked straight into the camp. The Grass-nin had no time to scream, no time for anything. Sand lashed up around their feet, coiled around their arms and legs, jerked them down until they sank waist-deep. More tendrils rooted through their pockets, removed weapons, exploding tags, poison, and ruined them. He crouched before their leader, tilted his head.

"Did you really think you could escape me? Especially after you harmed my lover?" The man's eyes widened.

"Your lover? We were told she was your sister!" Gaara grinned. He had no illusions about his smile. It was not pretty, or nice, or even deliberately frightening. It was simply disgusting, like a clockwork expression.

"You were told correctly." One of the other jounin gagged. "I was only going to fracture your fingers to prevent you doing handsigns. Now, I think I'll do more, just for that." They began to scream. "Severing the Achilles tendon was a nice start."

"Fuck you," one of them forced out. He rose to his feet, folded his arms, and let the sand spit them out. A twitch of his fingers, and the entire camp was pulled down into the earth, splintered and broken apart by his will. The shinobi stared at him with hopeless eyes. One was weeping.

"You have no way to kill yourselves. You have no water, no food. You cannot walk." He bowed his head, smiled underneath the fringe of his hair. "The edge of the desert is three miles away. Dawn is in thirty minutes. After dawn, you will have two hours until your brains bake in your skulls."

He turned away, "If the jackals don't get you first," and left them there, a message in the sand.

**Riding**

Naruto spun on his heel, arms behind his head as he called across the crowded main plaza,

"Hey, Gaara! You got any food at these things?" The Kazekage caught up with him, ignoring the wary glances of his villagers.

"Only the traditional festival foods. We have hummus and flat bread, dumplings, and cold tea." Naruto scoffed. "Not much of a festival, really. Come on, no games? What's this supposed to celebrate, anyway?" Gaara glanced around, checking the positions of the ANBU on the rooftops, before answering.

"Originally, it was meant to mark the birth of Suna's greatest hero, Kaminari." Naruto bounced over to a stall, bought a fried dumpling, and bit into it, liking the slightly sour taste on his tongue. It reminded him of the way Sasuke used to cook his onigiri, before he left.

"Hero for what?" Gaara cut his eyes at him, an expression equivalent to an ironic smile. "Sealing away the Shukaku in the tea jar."

"Hmph. Good for him, I guess. We have parties in Konoha for when Kyuubi was sealed, so I know the feeling." The line of tension in Gaara's shoulders loosened, his friend relaxing.

Kankuro came out of the shadows cast by the lanterns, mouth smeared with hummus and Temari beside him, her dress showing off all of her curves. She didn't really have much, compared to Sakura or Ino, but she was still more than pretty enough for Naruto to sit up and take notice.

"Hey, Gaara, this guy boring you?" Kankuro asked, slinging an arm around Gaara's shoulders. Temari stared into Naruto's eyes, making him twitch- damn, she was scary!- and finally let her lips quirk in a smile. '_Maybe she won't kill me slowly and painfully after all_.'

"Sorry, Uzumaki, I'm taken."

"That's okay, you're a bit too-" Her gaze sharpened. "-awesomely strong and pretty and ass-kicking for me, don't kill me please!" Kankuro rolled his eyes and elbowed him. "Don't let her freak you out too much, brat."

"'m not a brat," he mumbled reflexively, mouth full with the rest of his dumpling. Temari sniffed, then brightened. "Oh, look, they're starting the poetry reading." An old man, face wrinkled and pitted, hobbled to the microphone and coughed before starting to almost sing,

"_I am known to night and horses and the desert…_" They lingered for a while, enough for Naruto to understand that Kaminari was absolutely awesome and world-shatteringly handsome and all the regular hero crap.

"You guys got horses here? I thought Iwagakure had a monopoly on 'em." Gaara answered, "The best. We don't use them much, but they're invaluable for civilian transport." Naruto broke from the group long enough to pilfer a bowl of some weird noodle-stuff, returning to ask,

"You ride any of them?" Temari smirked. "Not the horses, no. Try looking a little closer." Kankuro groaned. "Oh, _god_, Temari, you just had to go for the awful double-entendre that everyone's heard a thousand times, didn't you?" Naruto blinked, chewing his noodles, as he looked from Temari to Kankuro to Gaara, who finally nodded, once, tensely.

"Aw, man!" Gaara's shoulders slumped for a moment. "You got laid before I did! No fair!" Kankuro's face twisted into a 'what the _fuck_?!' expression, while Temari stopped dead, staring. Gaara blinked, then shrugged.

"That's it?" Kankuro blurted. "We're in an incestuous three-way relationship that would get us killed if we weren't the Kazekage's siblings, and all you can worry about is that Gaara got laid before you did?" Naruto finished slurping up the last of his noodles, then pitched the bowl into a trashcan.

"Way I see it, aren't many people who will sleep with a jinchuuriki." He smiled, tinged with bitterness. "It's not for me to judge what makes you happy, you know?" Temari smiled- honestly, openly-, Kankuro punched a fist into his palm, and Gaara reached out and took his hand. '_Guess they must've really been nervous. Didn't know I was that important to Gaara_.'

Gravely, Gaara said,

"Thank you."

**In Other Eyes**

Moriko let the kunai weave between her fingers, a distraction from the sandstorm around, eyes flicking from her Kazekage to his advisors. Most shinobi hated guard duty; she was one of the few who enjoyed it, and that was what made Kankuro push for her to become the permanent leader of the guard detail.

She waved another shinobi on, the smaller figure disappearing into the night to perform a quick circuit of the village walls, before returning to her scrutiny. The Kazekage was slumped in his chair, cradling his head with one hand, the other occupied with writing his signatures on all the decrees that required it. Kankuro was at the window, Karasu strapped to his back, his painted face turned upward.

A few handsigns, and a bird made of sand fought its way to the window, carrying the latest dispatch. Kankuro opened it, ignoring the Kazekage's irritated order, and read the note, looking up and meeting her eyes through the cloth of the mask. He grinned, gave her a thumbs-up, and closed the window. The bird dissipated, joining the storm again.

Moriko moved to the left in time to see Temari enter the office, bento boxes filling her arms. The blonde pitched a box at Kankuro, set one down in front of the Kazekage, and plopped down on one of the couches, opening her own.

The Kazekage shoved his aside without looking, the pen continuing to scratch across the papers. Kankuro said something, crossing to him, and jerked the paper out from under his pen. Moriko almost smiled. His siblings and the Uzumaki kid were the only ones who would dare to do something so impertinent. Kankuro's expression softened, a hand going to the Kazekage's shoulder. He leaned back into the touch, closing his eyes as he dug the heels of his hands into his eyes.

Temari glanced up at the scene, turned back to her intelligence documents, hand busy with scooping sticky rice into her mouth. The Kazekage opened his eyes, dragged the bento box across the desk, and snapped his chopsticks apart, beginning to eat the noodles packed inside. Kankuro grinned, grabbed his own, and sat cross-legged on the floor by the Kazekage's side.

The scene was peaceful.

It was a lie. A lie made by the lines of stress etched into Kankuro's face, the blood stains on Temari's fingers- fresh from a new victim-, and the sand slowly writhing on the Kazekage's skin. A lie made by the mark of Temari's nails on Kankuro's cheek, the imprint of Gaara's teeth on Temari's neck, Kankuro's paint smeared across the back of Gaara's knuckles.

Moriko could do nothing for them, these lost, violent children who had been born into the world that she and the older shinobi had fought to shield them from, these sad, insane mockeries of human life and human relationships.

The real world was out there somewhere, and it would one day crash in upon them and take away all they had struggled to gain. But until that day, Moriko could watch, and delay reality's coming for as long as she could.

Even if she must fail.

**Options **

There are always other options. That was the first shinobi rule they learned in the Academy, and for the life of him, Kankuro can't think of any right now.

Not now, when his psychotic, murderous sister and a brother who thinks that crushing people in sand is the height of entertainment are curled on either side of him, sweat drying on their skin, their faces peaceful and as smooth as new marble.

And he fell into this- this relationship because Gaara and Temari had asked (_forced)_ him to, and it was wrong, so wrong, he knows this with the keen sharpness of a blade, but- and here he clenches his hands and hopes beyond hope that whatever remnant of his father exists can hear him- there are no other options.

To love others is to doom them: Gaara will give them the hardest missions, and Temari will 'forget' information that could save them.

His siblings will never love others: no man can keep up with Temari's lust for blood and battle, or accept her calluses and rough-hewn fingers, and Gaara? What the fuck is there to say about Gaara that hasn't already been said?

He closes his eyes and breathes for a long moment. Wonders if his father had ever loved him, if his father had ever been able to love. Bites his lip to prevent sharp-toothed laughter from racking his body, because here he is, twenty-two years old, and he still needs his father's approval.

'_Yes, father, I'm in an incestuous relationship with Temari and Gaara, and I'd like your blessing!'_

Gaara rolls onto his side and buries his red head into the crook of Kankuro's elbow. Kankuro's hand moves to run down the pale, unscarred back without thought. Temari sighs, softness feathering out on his skin. The only part of her that's soft. Even her arm, resting on his chest, is corded and muscular, scars luminous in the moonlight.

And he cannot leave them, these broken beings who depend on him to intercede with the world, to hold the things they do not understand at bay. He cannot abandon his family, and he cannot love another, and doom them to die.

He is bound by duty to those he loves. Temari is bound by her dependency on them to provide the blood she needs and the love she craves. Gaara is bound by his very otherness, by the fact that Temari and Kankuro are the only ones who can hope to even wander the edges of his alien mind, the mind that Gaara shares with Naruto

There is no understudy waiting in the wings to take his place, to allow him to slink off into the night, alone and free.

And so there are no options.

**Comfort **

Temari let her hands move into the practiced rhythm, checking the hinge on her fan, oiling sticky spots, fingers sweeping up and down the metal ribs to check for imperfections, tears in the thick silk.

A fan with three purple moons, three circles where she has embroidered the kanji of her sibling's names and her own name in silver thread, the one concession she made to sentimentality on this heavy weapon.

The fan was its own curse, in a way, like Karasu, like a black seal twining over Gaara's shoulder. A heavy weapon, traditionally wielded by the men of Suna, given to her by her father, who had extracted an oath to become strong. At the time, she hadn't understood why her strength would be so important. Stupid of her, not to understand.

Now, it was obvious. He had wished her to be strong enough to kill Gaara. '_Bastard_.'

The fan's blades snapped together with a heavy noise as she finished her inspection, wiping her hands off on a rag.

"Hey." She glanced up, saw Kankuro in the doorway to her bedroom.

"Hey." Her brother moved inside, hands shoved in his pockets, eyes glancing over everything in the room but her. She left the fan leaning in its corner, patted the bedspread beside her. Kankuro smiled briefly, a flash of white teeth, and finally sat down beside her, shoulder bumping into her own.

"What's the problem?" Kankuro's fingers twisted around each other, the skin of his cuticles bitten red and raw, seeping blood. Temari watched the droplets form, a bit surprised that her mouth wasn't watering, her fingers not itching to see how much blood a human body could contain.

'_It's different when they're your brother, I suppose._' Kankuro glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes, then finally sighed and answered. Just in time, too; she had almost been ready to beat the answer out of him, wanting to know what had her younger brother in such a strange state.

"Two of my squads haven't returned from their recon mission on the borders. Gaara sent out a few messenger birds, but they haven't found anything." She reached out, separated his hands, reached for the medical kit she kept underneath her bed. A necessity in any shinobi's home, but even more so now, when Gaara and Kankuro would scratch each other and they would all bite and claw and fuck on her bed. A strange sort of comfort, that, although no less strange than the comfort Kankuro got from her blunt words and old bandages.

"They aren't likely to, in this weather." A roll of white linen bandages. A pair of blunt-tipped scissors. Her hands moved in another familiar pattern, formed in younger years when Kankuro would come to her, limbs bleeding from over-extending himself with his puppet and getting his fingers crushed in machinery.

"I know." Brown hair flopped into her brother's face as he smiled awkwardly. "I still worry, though." She cut the bandage, taped it shut, and watched him flex his fingers, testing them. "I see you're still as good with those as you ever were. Should have been a medic-nin." She snorted.

"As if. I like causing excruciating pain too much." Kankuro laughed quietly, leaning against her side. His shaggy head fell onto her shoulder, body relaxing into hers as she held him up. Her arm stole around him.

The silver kanji of their names shimmered softly in the light of dusk, the threads binding them frailer than most deep dreams.


	5. Chapter 5

**Blood **

Kankuro leaned against the low wall at the back of the cemetery, watching Temari kneel before the low hump in the earth that was their mother's home and place white lilies on the small stone with her name.

Gaara was gone, the mysterious little freak, probably holed up in some cavern underneath a mesa, still working on his latest budget and failing miserably. His brother didn't understand numbers in the least, and needed Kankuro to help him.

He used to hate this day, when all of Suna shut down and the plazas were empty, everyone gone to their familial cemeteries to mourn. He used to hate it, because their cemetery was the largest in town, and when he stood there and let his eyes drift over the graves, it reminded him that he was nothing compared to his ancestors.

All of the Kazekages were buried here, in simple graves, marked only with their rank, and their many brothers, sisters, nieces and nephews, every member of his blood going back a hundred years. All of them shinobi, all called to die for Suna.

All had died for Suna, in the end, and left only him and his siblings to carry on the legacy of pain and fury and demons. They were all that was left, the last members of his once thriving blood-kin, poor and solitary and weak in comparison to the shinobi that had gone ahead.

His ancestors didn't approve. Not that Kankuro did, either. Approve, he meant, of sibling incest. But now that Gaara was twenty- all of them older, not necessarily wiser- none of them had an excuse, least of all him. He laughed, covered it up in a hacking cough as Temari glanced over her shoulder at him and arched a brow in irritation.

He could get out of it, if he tried hard enough. Hell, he'd already tried, and seen Umeko die for his trouble. But that had been a half-assed attempt, poorly planned and imperfectly executed. And since he still slept with them, and still slid inside Temari at night and blew his brother underneath the old desk, there wasn't any excuse for him, so he got something out of it that made his guilt worth it. Not that he had any idea what the hell that something was.

He pushed off the wall and crossed the cemetery to kneel next to Temari, looking around at the stones, the illustrious, blood-soaked history of his family.

_Kana – Died at the Battle of Snake Pass, holding off a hundred enemy shinobi._

_Yuka – Crossed two hundred miles of enemy-held terrain after losing an arm to bring back vital intelligence. Died after delivery._

_Ryou – Killed every member of his family and himself to prevent the secrets of Suna from being found._

Kankuro let his head fall, ran tired fingers through his hair. How long would it be until they ended up here, becoming nothing more than a name and a story on sandstone, and the bloodline of the Kazekages died out with a whimper? He would be the first, of course- the middle child, the third-best, the last in battle and the first to die. He grinned, then. Probably die in some battle no one cared about, on a cut-rate mission that wasn't all that important.

Gaara and Temari would fall together, insane and bloodthirsty to the end, probably defending the village from some terrible threat, the perfect way for them to die. And then their cemetery would be silent, and empty, and alone, with no one to come in October and run fingers across the engraved names until the edges cut the skin. The cacti would cover the empty spaces, prickly sentinels.

"Kankuro?" He blinked, shook himself free of his daydream, and looked back at where Temari stood by the gate.

"I'm coming, hold your horses." He stood, went to her, and looked up one last time at the motto engraved into the archway of the gate, the same old lie told by shinobi instructors the world over.

_What could be more beautiful than these heroic, happy dead?_

**Move**

The wind is howling, wearing away at the huge mesas that rise up above them like remnants of an ancient civilization, and the high shrieking of nature drowns out Temari's snarls and the 'hiss-click-snick!' of Karasu's whirling blades.

Gaara stands on the edge of the mesa and watches his siblings move under the white light of the sun, footprints entwining with each other on the dunes as Temari and Kankuro dive in and out of the morass of battle like needles through cloth, leaving behind long arcs of blood spilling onto the whiteness of the sand he loves.

They are beautiful when they move. They are beautiful in the same way that a sliced-open throat is beautiful, when it is possible to see the cunning machinery of the human body slow, grind against itself, halt. They are beautiful to him because they are all-too-human, all-too-fragile, a reminder that he had once been human.

Temari's fan opens further, exposing another purple moon, and she waves her weapon, wind hissing forth from her fingers and cutting once, twice, three times through the clot of Sound-nin. He smiles, seeing them fall, food for Temari's hunger and his own. Kankuro's fingers twitch, chakra strings weaving together in a pattern too complex for him to follow, and Karasu flings its arms open wide, poison-tipped needles firing from every aperture in the puppet's limbs.

The lucky ones die instantly, falling like wheat before a scythe. Temari glances up at him, blood spatters streaked across her cheek and a bruise forming on her forehead where a Sound-nin got in a lucky strike. Her pupils are dilated, mouth curled in a grin that resembles the one she wears during sex. He nods to her, and she throws herself back into the hunt.

Shukaku rages inside him, claws at the inside of his head, desperate to join the carnage, to enfold them in sand and crush them and feel the way bones bend and sing tense songs before snapping and piercing the abdominal wall, allowing contagion to spread from torn viscera.

Gaara holds the demon down with an effort. This battle is not his, but his sibling's, for they had asked him to stay out of it, to allow them to destroy the interlopers into their land. Apparently having him in the battle made it too easy.

But they asked, so he does what they wish.

There are only thirty shinobi left, and they stand in a desperate clump, fighting back-to-back, cornered animals against a wall. The desert wind wears away their endurance. Kankuro and Temari strike.

Karasu appears in their midst, arms snaking out, weaving amongst the shinobi and crushing several to his chest, where blades spring out and take them through the spine. Kankuro's face is strangely serious, mind completely in the battle- as it needs to be, for him to keep up with Temari- and hands weaving and out and in and out.

A Sound-nin lobs an exploding tag. Temari arches a brow in derision, snapping her fan fully open and waving another blast of wind towards the remaining shinobi. Karasu ducks down into the sand, covering itself and taking its prey with it, as the tag is caught in the wind and floats back towards the stragglers.

It explodes. The desert is luminous and red in the sunlight, painted in fire and in blood. He closes his eyes for a while, and listens to his sibling's footsteps as they climb towards him. Temari hits him first, a heavy weight, smelling of blood and green tea shampoo, a hot mouth pressed to his, tongue lapping at his teeth as she laughs breathlessly into his mouth. He holds her and tastes the blood on her lips.

Battle does this to her, makes her wild and wanting and joyful. She finally breaks away, spins around crazily on the edge of the mesa and laughs, hoarse and long, at the bloody expanse below. Kankuro is standing beside her, and Gaara coils a hand in his brother's jumpsuit, and jerks him close, biting his lower lip and ravaging his brother's mouth, the closest he will get to the battle that is already done.

Kankuro drops Karasu and clutches at his hips, pulling him up, thigh pressing itself between his and rubbing against him. Gaara grabs Kankuro's hood and pulls it down, blood between their mouths, needing to get closer, closer, to crawl inside his brother's skin and become human. Temari presses herself to his back, biting at the back of his neck.

Their coupling on the mesa is frantic, savage, and as they break apart, spent, and sprawl in ripped clothes against each other, Gaara closes his eyes and tastes his siblings on his lips.

If only for this moment, he is human.

**Alternative**

Temari leaned against the back of Gaara's chair, chin resting on her folded arms as she watched Gaara read his latest pile of mission rosters. It was getting darker outside, and she lifted her head to watch the lights flicker on outside in the courtyard, a shield and sword against the oncoming night.

"I received a letter from Naruto, today." She hummed in response, letting her hands fall onto his shoulders and play with the loose fabric of his shirt. "He says Sound is becoming bolder and more vicious in their attacks, due to Orochimaru's death. A Kabuto Yakushi has taken over, and Uchiha has also left the Sound village and struck out on his own."

"He won't come here, though. And we know the attacks are worse, for God's sake, we're the ones on the frontlines!" Gaara cracked his neck irritably, the noise loud in the dim closeness of his office. "Yes. I would go out to the borders myself-"

"The council wouldn't like that." Gaara pushed his chair back and stood, going to the window and looking out at the empty sky. She joined him, slung a companionable arm about his shoulders. There was a last bit of light, purple-red and quickly fading as the moon rose overhead. She looked up, arm falling from around her brother's shoulders. The sand grains afloat in the atmosphere from the sandstorm of two days ago still churned, coloring the moonlight and turning the moon crimson, dark as wine.

Glancing at Gaara, it was hard not to shiver. Gaara stared up at the moon, his pale eyes glinting darker in the red light, hair gleaming almost black. "Temari." She turned to face him fully, recognizing the weary tone of his voice.

"Yeah? What is it now?" Gaara didn't look at her, his eyes still fixed on that red, red moon. "If I do what my friendship with Naruto demands, and send out my shinobi to stand against Sound's encroachments, then many of them will die. Perhaps most of them." His hands clenched tight on the windowsill, wood splintering with a shredding noise underneath his fingers. A low growl rumbled low in his chest, almost too deep and rough to fit inside such a small form.

She waited for a moment, silent, until his shoulders relaxed, and he looked away from the moon that still called to the desert places inside him, before moving closer to him and pulling him close, enfolding his skinny frame within her arms, the most affection she would show to anyone.

"I couldn't care less what your friendship with Uzumaki demands. I also couldn't care less for the rats of this village, really. As long as you and Kankuro are safe, I couldn't give a fuck about what happens. But that's why you're Kazekage." Gaara's back shuddered against her in a clockwork resemblance of laughter.

"I can understand that. I wish…" he trailed off, let his head fall back onto her shoulder and gazed up at her with wise, feral eyes. She met his eyes calmly, unflinching at the empty void howling inside him, alive in his eyes. His skinny frame pressed back into her as his eyes closed, his body warm and sinuous, giving life to sparks underneath her skin.

"I wish there was an alternative," he sighed. She let her mouth trail over his forehead, feeling sand brush against her lips, and kissed his blackened eyelids, tongue flickering over the pulse of his dead heart in the spidery veins. The sand coating his skin tasted of blood, a taste unrelentingly familiar to her tongue, but no less beautiful for its familiarity. The blood of their shinobi, that would soon coat the desert sands in a sacrifice for the only true friend Gaara had.

She gripped his thin wrists, feeling them hang limply in her grasp, and let her mouth slide down Gaara's neck, leaving a slick trail, to his mouth, tongues entangling, hot and wet, blood mingling in their kiss, her hips rolling against her brother's skinny frame. Gaara freed himself and turned around, mouths meeting again, as her hand scraped down his chest to slide inside his robes.

He jerked once, teeth biting into his lower lip as he grabbed her shoulders, black eyelids flickering as she hissed into his ear, "We'll kill them, you and I, we'll tear them to pieces and send their heads back to Yakushi and let the desert have the rest."

Gaara shuddered against her, nails digging into her shoulder as he let his head fall onto her breast, teeth scraping over the delicate skin and leaving a dark bruise.

Under the light of the red moon, they stood there, and Gaara swore into her ear in a voice rough and humming with bloodlust, "We will burn Sound to the ground, though hell should bar the way."

**Song**

Moriko stood on the lip of the valley, watching the lights of the Sound encampment far below. She closed her eyes for a moment, grieving, and turned away from the flickering orbs, descending the ridge to where the Kazekage's siblings stood next to each other at the head of a small detachment of fifty shinobi. She pressed her hands together and went to one knee, head bowed.

"How many?" Kankuro asked, hand tugging at the edge of the wrappings of his puppet.

"Three hundred." A rough hand tapped her on the shoulder- Temari, she could tell by the calluses and the scent of blood- bidding her to rise. She did, brushing short, graying hair back from her eyes as she met cold green eyes.

"How are they camped?" Moriko drew out a sheet of the paper used to make exploding tags and began sketching the camp, explaining, "They have two watches visible, with more likely hidden in the shadows. All food and other supplies have been split into two depots, one on each end of the camp. I saw several summon creatures, as well." She finished sketching, handed it to Temari. The woman looked it over, eyes flicking over the map, her strategizing obvious.

"Permission to speak?" Kankuro nodded. '_Willing to listen to his underlings._' She added that to her mental list of Kankuro's attributes, pleased. Commander of ANBU was a prestigious position, and it reflected favorably that he would listen to an old campaigner like her. "If we wish to make an example of them, there are convenient tent poles." Kankuro looked queasy, glancing at his sister.

"Temari?" She rolled the map up with a snap, the smile on her face cold, grim, and fearsome. "Initiative, I like that in a kunoichi. Thank you. Go and choose your squad; I'm sending you in as a diversion." Kankuro glanced at her, seeming almost ready to protest. She was glad when he didn't.

The assembled jounin watched her come closer, their faces alight with eagerness. Most of them were young, too young, and it brought back memories of her youth and the First Shinobi War, when they had all lied to the examiners, adding two years to their ages, and were sent out to die for Suna, becoming nothing more than numbers on history's pages. She alone had survived, the only one from her year, coming back half-blind from poison and half-mad from pain, and they hadn't played a homecoming song for her, preferring to forget that her year- what was it they called that class now? Ah, the Fated Class- ever existed, ever died.

"You. You. You." The three jounin, the oldest of the fifty, came to stand beside her. Moriko went back to where Temari and Kankuro stood- too close together for propriety, hands tangled together, and was that a hickey she could see on Temari's neck?- and bowed once more. "I've selected my team."

"The old ones? Are you sure?" Temari folded her arms, brows drawing together in a frown. Moriko fought the urge to smile, remembering the eager battle-thirst of youth, before she had become a hero of a forgotten war. "Yes." Kankuro placed a hand on Temari's shoulder- ah, he understood, then; he would be a good commander for the rest, a counterbalance to his brother's alienation and his sister's bloodlust- and smiled, the quirking of lips sympathetic and a little sad.

"We'll tell them to play a song for you." She bowed her head, "Thank you," and went back to her squad. '_A final song._' Kunai sprang into her hands, wire stretched between one of her squad's fingers, a katana hissed from a sheath. She met their eyes, saw acceptance, and turned back to her commanders.

They would make Suna strong. Temari would provide ruthlessness, Kankuro patience, the Kazekage power. And perhaps it was their status as lovers that made them so dangerous, for they understood each other in all the ways that mattered.

She saluted one last time, eagerness to join the friends who had gone ahead rising in her throat, and turned to enter the valley of dying stars.

**Pets**

Kankuro stared into the mutt's brown eyes, then looked up at the merchant. The man was occupied with hawking his wares- substandard puppetry tools; any puppeteer worth their salt would see the cheap materials for what they were- and ignoring the old dog. He reached out, watching her dark eyes light up and the thin tail thump against the ground, and ran his hand over her yellowish fur, feeling ribs clack against his knuckles.

'_The guy's certainly not taking care of her, if he's letting her be this skinny._' His lips twitched into the beginnings of a smile as the dog pushed her head into his palm, demanding affection. '_Temari would kill me. Gaara probably wouldn't care, which is a point in my favor._' He rocked back onto his heels and pushed himself to his feet, clearing his throat.

"Hey, merchant!" The man turned, saw him, and grinned, exposing a mouth that had more teeth missing than present.

"What can I do you for?" Kankuro glanced down at the dog again. She met his eyes calmly, tail hitting the dusty ground, accepting of whatever decision he made. '_Fuck it, I'll do it and deal with the consequences later_.'

"How much for the dog?" The merchant blinked, looking down at the dog. "That old thing? She's no use to anybody anymore; she's too old to hunt, and never was too keen on guarding my stock. But if you really want her-" a speculative gleam entered his rheumy eyes, heralding trouble, "-I'd say two hundred would be a fair price."

Kankuro wanted to hit him. "The hell? You just finished saying how she was no use to anyone anymore!"

"Okay, one-fifty. That's as low as I'm going." '_Whatever._'

"Fine. Here." He tossed the coins at the merchant, watching with ill-disguised glee as the man stumbled and nearly fell in the dirt trying to catch them all. "Come on, girl." Rope leash in hand, he started to walk away, slowing down to accomodate the old dog's halting steps, only to turn around suddenly and holler at the merchant,

"What's her name?" The merchant finished biting one of the coins- like Kankuro would ever pay for something in counterfeit currency; penalty for that in Suna was having a hand removed- and yelled back,

"Natsumi."

* * *

"A dog."

"Yep."

"A _dog, _Kankuro." Well, at least Gaara was reacting the way he expected. The Kazekage had taken one look at Natsumi, reached out and let her sniff his hand, his green eyes cool.

The relationship had been sealed when Natsumi licked his hand. Gaara had stroked her head once, folded his arms across his chest, and said,

"I approve," before going upstairs to work on his latest proposal to make Kankuro the permanent diplomatic liason. So with Gaara's tacit seal of approval given, all he had to do was convince Temari. That was turning out to be much easier said than done.

"Yes, Temari, and her name's Natsumi, not 'dog'." Temari's eyelid twitched.

"I'll call it whatever I want to call it, you idiot. We don't need a dog! Where the hell are we going to put it? My bed's not big enough for four, it's hardly big enough for three! I already wake up half the time with your drool on my shoulder, not to mention with sand in unpleasant places. And furthermore, we use enough water already." Natsumi sat by his side, leaning into his leg and enjoying the feel of his knuckles kneading her neck.

"She can sleep on the floor, and she can be useful. If it gets cold, she can provide body heat." Temari stared for a long moment.

"We live in a desert, Kankuro. Our house has no problem storing heat from the day. Try again."

"She can eat our table scraps that we don't use."

"We have a disposal in the kitchen."

"She can guard the door." There was a skeptical silence.

"She looks like she weighs less than forty pounds."

'_Damn_.'

"She's… cute?" Temari's brow beetled together in a frown of consideration as she stared at Natsumi, watching the skinny tail thump and the prominent ribs shudder with pleased rumbles. Finally, she mumbled with great reluctance,

"She kind of is, at that." Kankuro's fist clenched in jubilation. "But-" he looked up, and quailed from her irritated face, "the moment she tries to get up on the bed, she's gone."

"That's fine," he said quickly, glancing down at Natsumi's happy, graying face. '_I knew Temari had to have a crack in her somewhere. There's a crack in everything- that's how the light gets in._'


	6. Chapter 6

** A/N:** This chapter has been edited to comply with Terms of Service. The NC-17 rated portion is on my Livejournal until the title 'Assent'.

* * *

**Room **

Temari stared out into the darkness of her bedroom, feeling Kankuro's breath pass across the back of her neck like a storm wind over the desert. Her brother's arm curled around her hips, pulling her in close as he muttered something indistinguishable.

The room was the same as it ever was, even in darkness; there was still a window facing north, only instead of admitting cool breezes from the forests of Konoha, it only let the pale light of a half-moon in. The ornamental fans- ornamental in appearance only; razor-sharp steel glinted on the curved edges- still hung on the wall. Kankuro was behind her, cold feet pressing against the backs of her ankles and itchy cotton sweat pants plastered to her thighs. Still a refuge from the outside, from whispers that cut into Kankuro's heart and cold eyes that- still, even after all these years- filleted Gaara's spirit.

But Gaara was missing. Her brother, who spent every night pacing back and forth, fingers plucking restlessly at his old ratty shirt and sometimes trailing across Natsumi's muzzle, before he would gingerly slide into the bed beside her, stiff and unyielding as a board, fear still gleaming in his eyes. And she and Kankuro would have to calm him with careful touches and silence, running hands over the ridge of his spine, lips brushing his forehead, until he finally unfolded, uncurled like a moth escaping a chrysalis, and relaxed against her, sand armor flaking off his skin and falling to the ground, leaving him vulnerable.

And then they would sleep. Kankuro would snore, kicking the sheets off, and Gaara would grind his teeth, mumbling something once in a while, and it was hot and sticky and sweaty and not conducive at _all_ to restful sleep, but somehow it was, because she couldn't sleep without them.

Gaara did this, sometimes; slipped out in the night and disappeared into the flat white emptiness of the desert, and she worried for him despite herself, worried if he was cold, dressed as he was in Kankuro's cast-off shirt and sweats that pooled around his feet, worried that he felt alone.

Her hand crept out, feeling the restless shape of him still imprinted in the mattress, the lingering desert warmth that clung to the pillow, the sand grains grating against her nails. '_He left, and my pillow won't tell me where he has gone._' She closed her eyes and waited for a while, the ticking of the clock loud in the silence.

The shutters on her window slid aside silently, admitting more light to move across the inside of her eyelids. There was the soft swish-swish of feet moving through sand, and a cool, thin body slid into the bed with them, maneuvering under Temari's arms. She let her arm tighten around his skinny frame, pressed a kiss into his wild hair, and whispered from a dry throat,

"Welcome home."

* * *

**Choice**

Baki leaned against the side of the arena entrance, watching the newly-promoted chuunin mill about, laughing and joking, under the gazes of the Hokage and Kazekage. He glanced up and saw Gaara, slouched in his chair with cold green eyes flickering over the crowd, speak to Tsunade out of the side of his mouth. The Hokage laughed. Temari stood to Gaara's right, Kankuro to his left, poking each other behind the chair and squabbling in low whispers.

'_Children, still._' He looked at the chuunin again, at their bright eyes and the way their hands played with the hem of their flak jackets, as if afraid the cloth would disappear like water underneath the sun. Many of them wouldn't live much longer.

Statistically, the first thirty would die in under three months. Probability of death would increase in multiples of five for every mission, before decreasing after the eleventh, as experience and skill conquered pride.

Unless you were a chuunin of Suna. There, you lived past the first fifty missions, or died in the first, for Suna had no room for pride, for weakness.

And Suna loved Gaara for that, for his ruthless policies, because it had made Suna the strongest of the Hidden Villages. Their armies were small, but held to a higher standard than all others, a standard of perfection.

In Suna you would defeat your flaws, becoming lean and honed as the jackals, or die in disgrace.

Unless you were Gaara, or Kankuro, or Temari, born with weapons in their hands and in their blood, who had survived hundreds of missions, who had hunted down their weaknesses and slaughtered them with the same cold efficiency that made them so feared.

Perhaps that was truly why Temari and her siblings had become lovers, had chosen to engage in something so ill-fated, because they were perfect weapons, bred and born to destruction, and only the children of the Kazekage could truly love each other.

Others would shrink, would quail from Kankuro's skill, from Gaara's cold perfection. Others would burn themselves out trying to keep up, to attain Temari's status, would sicken and tire and die trying to pull off the missions that the siblings of the Sand performed on a daily basis. Others would fear Gaara's dark-rimmed eyes, Temari's bloodthirsty smile, Kankuro's unnatural chakra control. Others would expect leniency, would expect grace, would expect the siblings to give them leeway, because they were lovers.

They would die for assuming such.

Temari and Gaara and Kankuro demanded more of their lovers, demanded power and skill and terrifying ability that no one else could hope to match.

He turned and took the stairs to the box where the siblings were, brow arching as he saw Temari and Kankuro's hands entangled, hidden from view behind the back of Gaara's chair. Gaara finally spoke.

"They are all so… complacent." Baki paused, moved out of the doorway as the Hokage and her guards left the box.

"They're chuunin, what do you expect?" Temari sneered at the celebrations down in the arena, snorting. "Probably think they're immortal, or some shit like that." Gaara reached up and took off his headdress, shaking out his short hair.

"Truly?"

"Yep," Kankuro said. "They've made it to the next level, and they're so excited about that that they've forgotten that there's a whole other one." He could hear the smile in Gaara's voice as the Kazekage said,

"At least the Suna chuunin do not believe that fallacy." Temari laughed.

"They've spent their entire time as genin fighting the encroaches of Sound. How could they think that?" Temari draped herself over the side of the chair, fingers tangling in Gaara's hair as she mused,

"They'll make good soldiers." Gaara leaned into the touch, his hand coiling in Kankuro's jacket and pulling him close. The older brother snickered.

"The other villages want to get the pride out of their chuunin, they should sent them to us. We'd beat it out of them in a moment!" Baki shook his head wearily. '_We wouldn't even have to talk to them. All they'd have to do is look in Kankuro and Temari and Gaara's eyes. Look into their eyes and see what they know: everybody dies._'

* * *

**Water **

Kankuro watched his brother sail through the air and land in the river with a loud splash, and faltered, receiving a deep gash in his side for his trouble. He turned back to his battle, and sent rage-fueled chakra humming down the chakra strings, watching the ninja close with Karasu, kunai whirling on her fingers.

It was the last mistake she would make.

Karasu's chest sprang open, and a cloud of flechettes fired out in a swirl of snapping, gnashing steel darts. The tiny shards hit the Sound-nin in the face, gashing, cutting, leaving her face a ruin of flesh and seeping blood. She howled in pain, fell into the river. A red cloud, redder than wine, billowed out like silk from where she floated.

Karasu sprang back to him in a clatter of wood and mechanical joints, settling back onto its position on his back as he sprinted to the river, searching, knowing with sharp clarity that the water-logged sand had pulled his brother down into the cold, black depths. He prepared to dive, undid the harness keeping Karasu on him and let his puppet fall, and choked.

A thin steel wire was wrapped around his throat in a hot line of pain, the sharp edges biting deep into his flesh. Half an inch.

Only half an inch of skin and muscle separating his arteries from the outside world, and that half an inch was quickly whittling away. He brought his hand up, grabbed at the wire. Blood flowed from his fingers, and he could feel the steel scraping on his bones. The wire tightened. His muscles bulged as he struggled to push it away, to keep from dying as his arteries spurted blood into the air. His eyes bulged as he searched for the controller.

Kabuto Yakushi walked out into the open, the ends of the wire wrapped around his fingers and yellow eye gleaming sickly. A thick black tongue lolled from his mouth, and in that tongue lay Temari, her arms imprisoned and her face darkening as she struggled to inhale air into lungs compressed by Yakushi's tongue. His sister's eyes rolled in her head, finally focusing on him. She gritted out from between clenched teeth,

"Kill him!" Kankuro didn't think, only reacted to his sister's command. He sprang for Yakushi, and staggered as the noose tightened further. Yakushi smiled.

"Such fallacy. You can destroy my village, slaughter my shinobi, burn my body away to ashes, but I will never die. I cannot be defeated."

A black streak passed by in the corner of Kankuro's eye. It speared Yakushi in the chest, spread outward like the tentacles of some elder god, and exploded through his skin, tearing him apart in a shower of flesh and blood-soaked cloth.

It was sand.

It was Gaara. The wire loosened, fell away, and Kankuro turned around to see Gaara, risen from the river, his hair black and plastered to his skin, green eyes burning hotter than the desert at noon, black sand sloughing from his skin as he took a halting step out of the water.

Gaara passed him by, seemingly ignorant of his presence, and Kankuro could hear a low, terrible growl bubbling in his brother's waterlogged chest. Sand rose from the ground around them, crawled onto Yakushi's remains, pulverized him, crushed him, leaving him as nothing. There wasn't even a bloodstain to mark the spot where he had died.

"You will not harm them," Gaara spat in a voice dripping hatred. "You will not harm anyone." And then he staggered, fell to one knee, and lay prone on the earth, bloody foam trickling from his lips.

Love, unconquered in the fight.

* * *

**Date**

It is winter in the desert, cold and gray. Gaara stands with his arms crossed, and watches his ANBU spar with fading vision.

His hair is white, his sight dimming, his bones ache in the morning. The sand moves sluggishly now, but he is still dangerous, and no one who has attacked Suna in the long fifty-five years since he became Kazekage has survived.

Heavy steps behind him alert him to Kankuro's presence. He leans into his brother's chest, and feels gray, wispy stubble brush across his head. The ANBU below pause, glance up long enough to see them, and smile, lifting hands to wave, before launching back into their brawls.

Suna has prospered. The alliance with Konoha is stronger than ever, built on the intangible bond between jinchuuriki, and more children are being born every year into a world free of demons and terror and war.

"Temari's got some new information for you," Kankuro finally says. Gaara turns in his arms, gazes up at his brother with something almost like love. Green eyes peer back out at him on a wrinkled, bearded face, glinting behind spectacles. His brother can no longer fight; he limps, his cane necessary to move; but he is still Kankuro, patient and enduring as stone, and that is all Gaara needs from him.

"About the Iwa alliance, I presume?" Kankuro smiles, slings a companionable arm around his shoulders as they amble back to the doorway.

Temari is snapping orders left and right when they find her, the center in a sea of harassed, terrified chuunin. She looks up, spots them, and brightens, running fingers through long, silver-blond hair.

"Gaara! They've accepted the alliance, which means we have now allied ourselves with every village." Gaara nearly smiles, crosses to her desk. She reaches up with a scarred arm and pulls him down into a kiss. The chuunin giggle, a few of them whistle. Temari gestures rudely, lets him go, and roars,

"Get back to work, you festering boils on a horse's ass!" The room is filled with the sound of hurried footsteps as Temari's ill-fated employees rush away.

"Miso soup tonight?" Gaara inquires mildly.

"Huh? Yeah, that's good. I'll be home at seven." Kankuro hobbles over, pecks Temari on the cheek, and joins Gaara as they leave the room.

* * *

Gaara heats the soup one last time, divides it into three bowls on the table. Kankuro wanders in, a newspaper under one arm, and takes a seat. Gaara sits beside him, stares at his food.

A minute ticks by. No Temari.

Another minute. Gaara deliberates sending an ANBU to find her.

Five minutes later, Temari swoops into the room, trailing paperwork behind her.

"Sorry I'm late, Umeko wasn't clear on whether or not the trade route from Kumo to Konoha was open again or not-" she eases herself into a chair, and picks up her spoon with hands covered in paper-thin skin.

They eat in comfortable silence, and Kankuro and Temari wash the dishes while Gaara works on his papers at the kitchen table to the sound of the radio,

'_I'd rather leave while I'm in love…'_

* * *

Temari helps Kankuro into his pajama pants, takes his cane and stows it in the corner, before she sits down at the foot of the bed while Kankuro lifts his deadened leg and slides underneath the covers. Kankuro reads his book, Temari works quietly on her mending- one of Gaara's robes- and Gaara holds Temari's hairbrush in arthritic hands and brushes her long hair, watching the tangles disappear with every stroke.

They finally all get into the bed together, jostling and shoving good-naturedly, before they settle into their respective positions, with Gaara in the center, as he prefers. He stares at the ceiling for a while as his siblings continue with their work.

As Kazekage, he has strengthened Suna beyond what was thought possible; he has made alliances with all the other nations; he has bequeathed a legacy of peace and prosperity to his village.

He has succeeded in all the goals he could ever set for himself.

They tangle their hands, and Temari turns the lamp off. Gaara closes his eyes, and sleeps.

Somewhere between the click of the light and the start of the dream, he slips from this life into the next, to await his sibling's comings.


End file.
